From football games to horse racing to car racing, spectator and/or sporting events in general have become a favorite pastime, often attracting a plethora of die-hard, loyal fans. Although live attendance at such events provide visual stimuli adequate to satiate some fans, most fans are typically unimpressed with visual stimuli alone and often eagerly seek other avenues of stimuli to more personalize their experience. Such avenues may include written statistical data of their favorite team, player, car or racing animal, live radio broadcasts and/or televised commentary via portable television units. However, as convenient as these avenues may be, they still inherently fail to fully personalize the spectator's experience by often limiting the spectator to media-dictated coverage of information. As such, the spectator is deprived of information that he/she may deem personally essential and important to his/her full enjoyment of the event.
For instance, the sport of car racing has become an increasingly popular spectator event, attracting tens of thousands of fans who attend to not only watch racecars circle the track at immense speeds, but to also learn about the racing team itself, the driver, driving and/or car conditions that may contribute to the performance of the driver and his car, the telemetry of the car and statistical information of the car. In addition to such data, most spectators typically also enjoy watching interviews with the drivers and/or pit crews. As engaging as all this information is, it often becomes difficult for the spectator to simultaneously watch the race and effectively absorb all the information that may be relayed to him by radio broadcasts, televised commentary via portable television units, statistical data books or any other means of transmission. As such, the spectator is generally overwhelmed and unable to enjoy the event at his/her own pace. This can be especially frustrating if the spectator, while attempting to absorb one piece of information, misses a different but personally important moment of the race (i.e., the cause of a car crash, taking of the lead by another car, etc.) that the media has chosen to not replay via televised or radio transmission. Furthermore, although a spectator may be able to gather missed information in televised post-game/race highlights or via newspapers the following day, much of the spectator's excitement has usually subsided or has been lost entirely due to the lack of real-time information and the inherent spontaneity carried therewith.
Although attempts have been made to provide such real-time information, many such efforts have proven ineffective and/or typically failed in supplying a substantial variety of information and content including real-time audio and visual data, statistical information and full motion video. In addition, most available systems or methods and suppliers of sports information have generally been unable to supply information personalized for each spectator. As such, most such systems usually only provide one stream of uniformly distributed information—selected, controlled and limited by the supplier of the information (i.e., the media). These generic and uniform relays of information typically fail to consider the personal preferences and behaviors of each spectator and instead supply a broad array of information that may only facially touch on aspects of the event that spectators have deemed relevant and worthy of in-depth coverage.
For example, although wireless mobile computer users today have access to wireless content/information, such access is generally limited in the type and amount of content/information provided. Specifically, since the primary method utilized by mobile users to acquire content is through various manners of wired based synchronization between the user mobile station and base system, the content downloaded onto the user station is typically static text and still images, possibly enhanced with the inclusion of simple animated objects. Moreover, the vast majority of content acquired by the use of wired based synchronization can be material hours and even days. Such a method is clearly disadvantageous, as it fails to provide immediate, real-time full-motion video, audio or textual information.
Newly available technologies incorporating the use of 802.11, BLUETOOTH and/or 3G network protocols embedded within low cost radio transceivers have expanded the ability of wireless Internet access, thereby substantially increasing the amount of available content/information. Moreover, because such technologies provide high bandwidth data throughput to mobile computer stations, the information relayed to a wireless mobile computer user is transmitted with virtually no delay in time. As such, the mobile user is able to immediately access the current environment/conditions of an event in real-time. Systems failing to incorporate such technology are becoming obsolete due to the ability of the new technology to deliver real-time information to an individual user of a wireless mobile computer/unit.
Therefore, it is readily apparent that there is a need for a method and apparatus for displaying real-time information objects between a wireless mobile user station and multiple information sources based upon event driven parameters and user modifiable object manifest, wherein such real-time information includes, but is not strictly limited to visual, audio and textual data presented to a wireless mobile user in a systematic and ad hoc manner based upon the personal preferences and behavior analysis of the wireless mobile user.